04 Dark Space Read Free Page B

seen.
    For the first time in a long time it seemed like humanity had a chance. It seemed like they were finally safe.
    But things are not always what they seem. Hoff frowned as the Intrepid disappeared in the shadow of the Valiant. The Sythians had invaded the Adventa Galaxy with seven fleets. Just less than a whole fleet had been destroyed during the war, and the Gors had surrendered with one recently, leaving the Sythians with the equivalent of five full fleets and six surviving command cruisers. He estimated that left them with over a thousand capital-class vessels—more than enough for them to return and get their revenge. Dark Space had been a wonderful safe haven when the Sythians didn’t know where it was, but now that they did, it was a death trap. Humanity was holed up in a sector with just one way in or out. They were outnumbered and backed into a corner.
    “Admiral,” Lieutenant Hanz said from the comm station.
    Hoff looked over at the young man. “Yes?”
    “The Intrepid has successfully docked, sir, and Master Commander Donali is already aboard.”
    Hoff nodded. “Good. I’ll be in the operations center if anyone needs me. Deck Commander Akra—” Hoff waited for her to look up from the helm. Her pale blue eyes contrasted eerily with her honey brown complexion.
    “Yes, sir?” she asked.
    “You’re the acting CO. I’ll be back at 1730 hours.”
    “Yes, sir,” Akra replied.
    With that, Hoff stalked down the gangway to the entrance of the bridge. Heads turned, the crew watching with frowns and curious eyes as he left. The doors swished open and then shut behind him. No doubt his crew was wondering what he was going to discuss with Commander Donali, if it were important, and whether or not it affected them.
    Hoff strode up to the bank of lift tubes outside the bridge and slapped the call button. He heard a quiet shuffling of feet and turned to see that two of the four sentinels standing guard at the entrance of the bridge had peeled away from the doors and were now flanking him at a discreet distance. Hoff nodded to them. Major Rekan, the ranking officer of the two, nodded back.
    Turning away, he waited for the lift tubes with a frown. Bodyguards. A necessary evil these days. He thought back to a time when he could walk around his flagship without fearing for his life. It felt like forever ago. Those days were long gone, and they weren’t likely to return.
    One of the lifts opened, and Hoff stepped inside followed by his guards. He selected the deck marked OP. The operations center was one of 12 decks inside the Valiant’s bridge tower, which in turn sat on top of another 142 decks. The warship over half a klick high—so big that it had to have its own gravlev train system just so that people could get from one end to the other in a timely fashion.
    It was like a city in space, and it required a skeleton crew of over 10,000 officers just to keep it running properly. Unfortunately, the criminal revolt had wiped out the original crew of the Valiant— more than 50,000 officers, and Hoff had had to strip crews from stations and warships all over Dark Space just to get half the people he needed. To fill the rest of the ship’s skeleton crew he’d pulled newly-recruited criminals from the outlaw fleet, and he’d even allowed more than a thousand Gors to come aboard as navy sentinels and ISF (Imperial Security Forces) in training.
    Hence the bodyguards. Between the Gors and the ex-cons, Hoff had to watch his back wherever he went. The irony was, though, he was more worried about the criminals than the Gors. The Gors had surrendered when they could have won, but the criminals had only done so when their backs were to the wall. That was a big part of why Hoff had agreed to have the Gors come aboard. Besides the fact that they were unparalleled soldiers and better suited to be sentinels than any human, they were the one thing that might keep the ex-cons in line. You’d have to be a stim-baked skriff to